Surrey · 11 councils, one county-run grant
Solar Panel Grants Surrey: What You Can Actually Get
What exists for homes from Spelthorne to Tandridge and Waverley to Epsom and Ewell, who each route is for, where the group-buy stands, and the VAT saving every home installation gets.
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Solar panel grants in Surrey come down to one county-run scheme, and it is narrower than the word “grant” suggests. There is no general grant for solar on a home in Guildford, Woking, Epsom or Reigate, and nobody can honestly promise a fully funded system without asking about your income, your home’s EPC rating and who owns it. What does exist is real: a Warm Homes grant that Surrey County Council runs for all eleven boroughs and districts; an energy company scheme that ends on 31 December 2026; a lower-interest loan; a group-buy with no round open; and a 0% VAT rate on every residential installation.
We are an installer, not a grant body. Home Comfort Enterprises (HCE) does not deliver or arrange any of these schemes: a Warm Homes decision belongs to Surrey County Council’s Greener Futures team, not to your borough or to us, and an ECO4 decision to the scheme itself. Each route below is set out as its own source described it on 19 October 2026 unless dated otherwise, alongside our main solar panels Surrey page.
Quick answer
Solar panel grants in Surrey, in short:
- No general grant pays for solar on an ordinary Surrey home; the funded routes are income-linked and need an EPC of D to G
- All 11 Surrey borough and district councils share one Warm Homes: Local Grant consortium, funded with £13,914,375 and run by Surrey County Council from 1 September 2025 to 31 March 2028
- Surrey’s guidance lists solar PV and battery storage among the measures, with whole-project averages estimated at up to £12,400 and no contribution expected from eligible owner occupiers
- Switch Together (formerly Solar Together Surrey) read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” for every Surrey council area on 19 October 2026; no round dates are published
- ECO4 is income-linked and runs until 31 December 2026; the Warm Homes Loan Scheme is lower-interest borrowing, not a grant
- 0% VAT applies to every residential solar panel and battery installation in Surrey until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027
Sources: Switch Together, Surrey County Council, GOV.UK, Ofgem and HMRC, read 19 October 2026.
Who Surrey’s funded route is written for
For the Warm Homes: Local Grant, GOV.UK sets the national gate: the home must be in England, privately owned (by you or your landlord) and rated EPC D, E, F or G, and household income must usually be £36,000 a year or less, unless an eligible postcode or certain benefits apply. Surrey County Council’s guidance, reviewed 8 October 2026, turns that into five pathways: an auto-eligible postcode, a means-tested benefit such as Pension Credit, Universal Credit or Council Tax Support, a gross household income of £36,000 or below, an after-housing-costs test for larger households above that line, and an ECO Flex route for homes rated E to G. Every pathway needs an EPC of D, E, F or G, and an assessor’s survey decides what is viable; insulation comes first where the home lacks it.
The EPC test catches more Surrey houses than the county’s reputation suggests. The ONS puts the median home in the Guildford constituency at 68 and in Epsom and Ewell at 67, both band D, and the median Epsom and Ewell home built before 1929 at 59. In Surrey Heath the median home sits exactly on the band C line at 69, but the median detached house scores 66, band D. Income is the harder test in a county of high owner-occupation (74.0% in Surrey Heath, 71.3% in Elmbridge, at the 2021 Census): owning your home does not qualify you on its own.
Tenure decides the route. Private tenants can apply, with the landlord’s first property fully funded and a 50% minimum contribution on any further ones. Social housing is not eligible, apart from limited in-fill, and Surrey’s councils upgrade their own stock through separate funds: Tandridge fitted panels, insulation and triple glazing to 151 council homes through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, and Runnymede’s programme of solar and wall insulation covers almost 170. If you rent from a council or housing association, ask your landlord instead.
The Warm Homes: Local Grant in Surrey, council by council
In Surrey the council-by-council answer is the same eleven times, which is itself useful to know. GOV.UK’s list, updated 2 July 2026, gives the Surrey consortium £13,914,375 with eleven members: Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley and Woking. Surrey County Council manages the grant on their behalf, with DESNZ funding, from 1 September 2025 to 31 March 2028. When we read its guidance on 19 October 2026 it carried an online application form and no pause notice; owner occupiers are not expected to contribute, and the council says funding depends on survey results, viability and value for money, so no home is entitled to a set amount.
- Elmbridge: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; its 2025 Solar Together round took registrations from 16 June to 29 August 2025. Our towns here: Weybridge, Walton-on-Thames, Cobham, Esher.
- Epsom and Ewell: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council says it has supported four Solar Together rounds. Our towns here: Epsom, Ewell.
- Guildford: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council points residents to Action Surrey, the county energy-advice service it part-funds. Our towns here: Guildford.
- Mole Valley: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council counts more than 1,300 panels fitted through Solar Together. Our towns here: Dorking, Leatherhead.
- Reigate and Banstead: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council says Solar Together has run three times and benefited hundreds of homes in the borough. Our towns here: Reigate, Redhill, Horley.
- Runnymede: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the 2025 Solar Together phase the council took part in was scheduled to finish installing by the end of March 2026. Our towns here: Virginia Water, Egham.
- Spelthorne: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council is a participating partner in Solar Together Surrey. Our towns here: Staines-upon-Thames.
- Surrey Heath: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council counts more than 500 Solar Together installations since 2021. Our towns here: Camberley.
- Tandridge: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the council is a participating authority in Solar Together Surrey, which ran a round in 2025. Our towns here: Caterham.
- Waverley: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; around 450 of the council’s own homes already have solar PV. Our towns here: Farnham, Godalming, Cranleigh, Haslemere.
- Woking: Warm Homes grant through Surrey County Council; Switch Together page read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” on 19 October 2026; the most common EPC-recommended improvement in the borough is a 2.5 kWp solar PV system. Our towns here: Woking.
One borough gives a sense of scale. Epsom and Ewell’s climate page says more than 1,360 energy efficiency measures had been installed in homes there through grant funding up to June 2025, and points residents to the county’s Greener Futures team for the latest grants. Our guide to what the council and schemes offer Ewell households takes the battery side of the same grant in one town.
Solar Together Surrey: a group-buy, not a grant
Surrey County Council has run Solar Together Surrey with iChoosr, a group-buying specialist, since 2021. Vetted installers bid in a reverse auction, registration carries no obligation, and households can add battery storage; the household still pays for the system, at the pooled price. Around 2,250 Surrey residents have had panels and batteries fitted through it, and Epsom and Ewell’s first three rounds alone fitted 157 household solar systems, 132 batteries and 18 EV chargepoints.
The scheme now trades as Switch Together. On 19 October 2026 its Surrey page and its pages for all eleven council areas read “We’re not open in your area at the moment” and invited residents to register to be told when the next scheme launches, which matches what we recorded for Mole Valley and Epsom and Ewell on 18 October 2026. If a Surrey round reopens, compare its offer line by line against a survey quote for the same roof, as our guide to what is in a solar quote, line by line sets out.
ECO4 and the Warm Homes Loan for Surrey homes
Ofgem says ECO4 applies to measures installed from 1 April 2022 and will run until 31 December 2026, following a nine-month extension. It is funded by energy suppliers, not by Surrey’s councils, and it is income-linked, not a general offer. Surrey County Council warns that residents have reported scam calls offering home energy surveys and insulation, and says it will never cold call to offer energy support; if you are contacted unprompted in Woking, Redhill or anywhere else, check the company before agreeing to anything.
For a Surrey household above the grant’s £36,000 line that does not pass the after-housing-costs test, the other government route is borrowing, through the Warm Homes Loan Scheme. Its rules cap loans at £15,000 for solar PV and £15,000 for a battery, and government pays participating lenders up to 20% of the loan amount to bring the interest rate down, with an initial consumer launch phase from September 2026. That makes it a lower-interest loan to repay, not a grant, and we have not verified which lenders are taking Surrey applications; check GOV.UK for participating lenders.
Want a Surrey quote to hold against any offer?
Grant or no grant, a no-obligation survey gives you an itemised written quote for your roof, anywhere from Egham to Caterham.
0% VAT and export payments on Surrey installations
Most Surrey households will not pass the grant’s income tests, so the help that reaches them is VAT, which needs no application. HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 puts residential installations of solar panels and batteries at 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027; batteries have qualified since 1 February 2024, with or without panels. It applies equally to a battery added to panels from an earlier Solar Together round, to a Switch Together offer if a Surrey round reopens, and to an independent quote. Our guide to VAT on solar panels and batteries covers the edge cases.
The Smart Export Guarantee is sometimes sold in Surrey as if it were a grant. It is a payment for surplus units, at rates set by each supplier and must be above zero — they change on short notice, which is why we never print one. A due-south, unshaded 4 kWp roof in Guildford makes about 3,974 kWh a year on PVGIS, and how much of that leaves the house depends on who is home in the day. A supplier will want an MCS certificate for the installation; ours is held via NAPIT (member 73495) for solar PV and battery storage. A battery changes the export side of the sum, as our battery storage page explains.
Grant offers in Surrey: what to check first
If a caller, leaflet or advert offers “free solar panels” to a Surrey home, read it as “no upfront cost for eligible households, with criteria and a survey first”. The funded routes here are income-linked: the Warm Homes: Local Grant through Surrey County Council, and ECO4 until 31 December 2026.
- Ask which body is funding it. In Surrey the honest answer to “which council?” is Surrey County Council, whichever of the eleven boroughs and districts you live in; a caller who names your borough as the grant-giver, or only “a government scheme”, has not read the scheme.
- The grant decision is not an installer’s. Surrey County Council’s retrofit assessor decides what is viable for your home. An installer cannot sell you a place.
- Check permissions before measures. Surrey’s guidance makes planning, freeholder and conservation consents the resident’s responsibility; our guide to planning permission for solar panels in Surrey sets out where they apply.
- Check the installer’s registers. We are NAPIT member 73495 and HIES Consumer Code member HCE/A/1392.
What a Surrey roof earns without a grant
Without a grant, the sums start with light. The Met Office station at Wisley, near Woking, averaged about 1,584 hours of sunshine a year over 1991–2020, roughly 13% above the UK norm of about 1,400. For an unshaded roof at 4 kWp, 35° tilt, due south, 14% system losses, building-mounted, PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre) gives about 3,960 kWh a year in Epsom, 3,966 in Ewell, 3,974 in Guildford, 4,006 in Leatherhead, 4,008 in Caterham, 4,049 in Dorking and 4,070 in Haslemere. By our arithmetic the spread across all 11 Surrey towns we have run is about 110 kWh, smaller than the year-to-year variation at any one of them (±128 to ±157 kWh), so roof direction and the county’s trees matter far more than which Surrey town you live in.
On cost, the national anchor is the Energy Saving Trust’s: a typical 4.5 kWp system of around 12 panels costs around £7,600 installed (updated 27 August 2026). That is a UK figure, not our price, which comes from a survey. What moves it locally is on solar panel cost in Surrey, and the national breakdown is on solar panel installation cost. Town by town: solar panels Guildford, solar panels Epsom, solar panels Dorking and solar panels Leatherhead. The battery systems in our own job photos are EnSmart.
Sources: Switch Together: Surrey, Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley, Woking · Surrey County Council: Warm Homes Local Grant guidance for householders (reviewed 8 October 2026), Home energy saving support, Solar Together Surrey · GOV.UK: grant allocations, apply page, Warm Homes Loan Scheme rules · Ofgem: ECO, Smart Export Guarantee · HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6 · ONS: Census 2021 TS054 tenure, median EPC score (March 2025) · European Commission JRC, PVGIS · Energy Saving Trust, solar costs (updated 27 August 2026). Read 19 October 2026 unless dated. Scheme tallies and council-housing figures: Epsom and Ewell, Mole Valley, Surrey Heath, Waverley, Tandridge and Runnymede council pages and the Woking Borough Council newsroom, as recorded on our Surrey town pages (July to October 2026); EPC medians: ONS ad-hoc dataset 2545 and the March 2025 edition; Met Office Wisley long-term averages, 1991–2020.
Solar panel grants in Surrey: your questions
Are "free solar panels" offers in Surrey genuine?
Only as an income-linked scheme with criteria. The funded route in Surrey is the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which Surrey County Council runs for all 11 borough and district councils, and ECO4 until 31 December 2026. The council grant needs an EPC of D to G and a household that qualifies through a postcode, a means-tested benefit, income or one of the council’s other listed pathways, and Surrey County Council says it will never cold call to offer energy support. An offer that skips those questions is selling something.
Is Solar Together Surrey open?
Not when we checked. Solar Together Surrey now trades as Switch Together, and on 19 October 2026 its Surrey page and its pages for every one of the 11 council areas read “We’re not open in your area at the moment”, inviting residents to register to be told when the next scheme launches. No round dates are published. It is a group-buy, not a grant: you still pay for the system, at a pooled price.
How do I apply for the Warm Homes: Local Grant in Surrey?
Through Surrey County Council, whichever borough or district you live in. GOV.UK lists all 11 in the Surrey consortium, funded with £13,914,375, and the county’s guidance, reviewed 8 October 2026, carries an online application form. Check the tests first: an EPC of D to G, and eligibility through an auto-eligible postcode, a means-tested benefit, a household income of £36,000 or below, the after-housing-costs route or ECO Flex.
Does the Surrey Warm Homes grant pay for solar panels and batteries?
It can. Surrey County Council’s guidance lists solar PV, solar thermal and battery storage among the measures, with whole-project averages estimated at up to £12,400 per household, but what is installed depends on a retrofit assessor’s survey, viability and value for money, and insulation comes first where it is lacking. Existing solar arrays cannot be repaired or replaced under the grant.
Is there VAT on solar panels and batteries in Surrey?
Not on a residential installation at present: 0% until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027, under HMRC VAT Notice 708/6. It applies to every Surrey household without an application, whether the system comes through a Switch Together round or an independent quote.
Get a straight answer for your Surrey home
Send us your postcode and a recent bill, and we will tell you plainly whether solar stacks up on your roof without a grant, and what it would cost, itemised in writing. If your household looks likely to pass one of Surrey County Council’s five grant pathways, we will point you to the county first. Call 0204 547 1892 or use the form.
Also see: solar panels across Surrey · solar panel cost in Surrey · planning permission in Surrey · solar panels Caterham